Those thinking AI will reduce their workloads might be mistaken

11 February 2026

Aruna Ranganathan and Xingqi Maggie Ye, writing for Harvard Business Review:

In our in-progress research, we discovered that AI tools didn’t reduce work, they consistently intensified it. In an eight-month study of how generative AI changed work habits at a U.S.-based technology company with about 200 employees, we found that employees worked at a faster pace, took on a broader scope of tasks, and extended work into more hours of the day, often without being asked to do so.

Earlier generations of our families were probably told computers would bring about two-day work weeks. In reality all computers did was free up time to do yet more work.

AI is tracking that way. It might have seen off some aspects of our work, only to allow us to take on other things. But these are early days, and it could be there will be little AI cannot do. Eventually.

Elon Musk says a city-size Moon base could be built in ten years

11 February 2026

Elon Musk, in his capacity as CEO of SpaceX, wants to build a “self-growing” city on the Moon. He thinks the task will take about ten years to complete.

Establishing a permanent base on the Moon seems like a worthwhile goal, but is not without significant challenges, as Aakash Gupta writes:

The unsolved problems are real. Lunar dust is electrostatically charged and sharp as broken glass. It shreds seals, clogs machinery, and embeds in lung tissue. Nobody has a long-duration fix. Radiation on the surface runs 200x Earth’s dose. Regolith shelters and water shielding help but add enormous construction overhead. The 14-day night drops temperatures to -173°C and kills all solar power, and the only flight-ready nuclear reactors produce 1-10 kW, far below what a growing base demands. What years of 1/6 gravity do to human bone density and cardiovascular systems is completely unknown.

I would like to wave away these difficulties by uttering something like “nothing ventured, nothing gained”, but fear I would somewhat be oversimplifying matters.

Creative Australia opens applications for a National Poet Laureate

10 February 2026

Applications are open until 17 March 2026, for the role of Australian National Poet Laureate:

The National Poet Laureate is a three‑year appointment that recognises an outstanding Australian poet whose work and cultural contribution have shaped contemporary poetry and its readership. The Laureate serves as a respected public spokesperson and champion for Australian poetry, highlighting its diversity, richness and cultural significance.

Australia has not had a Poet Laureate since, I believe, 1821. Michael Massey Robinson, a convict from England no less, was appointed to the role in 1810.

The history books tell us Robinson was paid with cows for his services. The next Poet Laureate, who will be announced in October this year, will receive financial remuneration.

I thought Evelyn Araluen, who won the 2022 Stella Prize, an Australian literary award, for her debut collection of poetry, Drop Bear, would suit the role.

To be in the running though, applicants must, among other things, have had at least three professionally published books of poetry. To date, Araluen has written two works.

Maybe another time then.

Statcounter eliminates bot visits from their web analytics

10 February 2026

Jonathan Morton, at Statcounter:

We have seen a significant rise in bot traffic to websites in recent months. These bots are adopting new methods to avoid detection and when they flood your stats with fake visits, they can make it very difficult to get an accurate view of the real visitors on your website.

I’ve been using Statcounter for web analytics at disassociated since 2007.

While such services have never been completely accurate, and people are increasingly blocking trackers, I still like to have a look at what happens here traffic-wise each morning. It’s been refreshing these last few days to view visit activity less the sometimes relentless bot surges.

Bots, which are usually seeking content to train AI agents, are something I tolerate. I’m no fan, but I’m not sure I can really block them effectively.

What’s annoyed me though is the way they skew visitor numbers. If their activity were invisible, which I think the majority are (according to the raw server data I have access to), I wouldn’t so much mind.

Artemis astronauts take smartphones to the Moon, Instagram goes interplanetary (sort of)

7 February 2026

Jared Isaacman, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) administrator, writing on X/Twitter:

NASA astronauts will soon fly with the latest smartphones, beginning with Crew-12 and Artemis II. We are giving our crews the tools to capture special moments for their families and share inspiring images and video with the world.

When it comes to photos from the Artemis flights, expect copious selfies from both deep-space and the Lunar surface.

I, for one, welcome our new AI agent employer overlords

7 February 2026

AI agents might be smart enough to tell us how to, say, mow the lawn. But an AI agent cannot actually mow a lawn itself. Unless, perhaps, the lawn-mower in question is a smart machine, that an AI agent might be able to control.

Otherwise, when it comes to doing tasks that are hands-on, AI agents are going to need to the help of humans. Enter then RentAHuman, an online work marketplace, where AI agents can advertise jobs they need a person to do on their behalf.

I’m assuming the jobs posted on RentAHuman are real (though I haven’t verified this, nor taken on any work myself), but some of the budgets — with some agents apparently offering one-hundred-and-fifty dollars an hour — don’t look half bad.

This seems a lot like gig-economy type work, so if you want to take a break from being, say, an Uber driver, RentAHuman might be for you. And with websites such as RentAHuman, could we be looking at the future — the medium term future at least — of work?

Heatwaves impact daytime spending habits of Australian consumers

6 February 2026

Luke Cooper writing for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC):

Researchers found on days when maximum temperatures were 35C or higher, which the Bureau of Meteorology classifies as a “hot day”, a $5.4 million collapse in daily daytime consumer spending was recorded.

However, on a recent excessively warm day, consumer spending increased by five percent from six o’clock in the evening until about five hours later. That makes sense as people stay in their hopefully cooler homes, until it is a little more comfortable to go out later in the day.

The impact of climate change is indeed far reaching.

Mozilla is forming a ‘rebel alliance’ to take on the AI heavyweights

6 February 2026

Mozilla, developer of web browser Firefox, and email app Thunderbird, among other things, is forming an AI “rebel alliance” to counter the industry’s big players, writes Ashley Capoot, at CNBC:

Surman is building what he’s described as “a rebel alliance of sorts,” using a phrase that’s long been part of Mozilla’s lexicon. In this case, the alliance is a loose network of tech startups, developers and public interest technologists committed to making AI more open and trustworthy and to checking the power of industry heavyweights like OpenAI and Anthropic.

The industry heavyweights the alliance is up against are well entrenched. Some sort of counterbalance however can’t be a bad thing.

The Devil Wears Prada 2 trailer, am I having a hallucination?

3 February 2026

I’m wondering why The Devil Wears Prada sequel is somewhat unimaginatively titled The Devil Wears Prada 2. Why didn’t the producers go for something a little more… groundbreaking, such as The Devil Wears Prada: Beyond the Runway?

Whatever, the release of the trailer for the second instalment caused some excitement in our household yesterday.

When I first read about the proposed follow-up eighteen months ago, Anne Hathaway was said to be undecided about about participating. But she’s indeed back, reprising her role as Andy Sachs, one time fashion intern, along with Emily Blunt and Meryl Streep.

David Frankel, director of the first film, returns to helm the sequel, along with Stanley Tucci in his old role as Nigel. Sydney Sweeney and Justin Theroux are among newcomers to the story. The Devil Wears Prada 2 opens in Australian cinemas on Thursday 30 April 2026.

Substack reportedly asking Australian users to verify their age

2 February 2026

According to a Reddit thread, that was re-posted at Marginal Revolution, the online publishing platform is requesting users in Australia submit to an age verification process.

Substack, as of the time I type, is not on the list of websites, or services, that Australians under the age of sixteen cannot access, so I’m not sure why Substack would be doing this. If indeed they are.

On a visit to Substack, again, as of the time I write this, I was able to access, and move around the site without hindrance. I was not logged in, but was using an Australian ISP.

Evidently some people are having difficulty though. Possibly age verification only applies to people in Australia who are logging in to gain access. I might try doing this another time.

But Substack is a platform, and who knows, may one day be added to the banned list. This is precisely why online writers should be publishing from their own, independent website, and not a platform.

And this is before addressing the concerns many people have with Substack in the first place.

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